Free Will Is A Gift From God - Yes Or No?

One of the main questions which stands between believers of the Calvinist theology, the Arminian theology, and we who stand somewhere in the middle is:  "Did God create man with the gift of Free Will?" 

And that question can be narrowed even further to:  "Does man have the Free Will to choose to follow Christ as Lord and Savior - or - to deny Christ as his Lord and Savior?  Does man have the Free Will to choose eternal life in Christ - or - to choose eternal condemnation absent from Christ?"

Calvinist say, NO, man does not have the gift of Free Will to choose salvation or condemnation.  They teach that only the pre-Creation Elect will spend eternity in Christ.  All others, the Reprobate, will not have a choice, they will spend eternity in hell. 

My thoughts: God created man.  God could have created ONLY the Calvinist Elect - but He did not.  Why would the God of perfect Love and perfect Justice - create billions of people, the Reprobate, for the sole purpose of sending them to eternal hell?  Biblically that does not make sense.

Arminians say, YES, God did give man the gift of Free Will.  Each individual has the Free Will to choose to follow Christ or to deny Christ.  But the fallacy for me in the Arminian theology is their teaching of a Conditional Salvation, that a true believer, once indwelled by the Holy Spirit - can lose his/her salvation.  That is proven wrong in the Bible.

My thoughts:  Multiple Scripture verses prove that teaching to be false:

Has eternal life:  John 3:16, John 6:47, John 10:28

No One Can Snatch them out of My hands:  John 10:28-29,

A child of God:  John 1:12, 1 John 3:1-2

Adopted into His family: Ephesians 1:5-6, Galatians 4:5

Whoever believes in Him shall NOT perish but have everlasting life:  John 3:16

He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life"  John 5:24

Now back to the reason for this blog:  The discussion of Free Will - Yes or No?

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BILL GRAY on May 24, 2021, posted a blog which began with this excerpt:

RECENTLY  I SAW A GRAPHIC ON FACEBOOK WHICH I FELT WENT A BIT TOO FAR, even for the Reform / Calvinist theology camp  ~  And I felt that I had to address the quote shown in the graphic which was attributed to Dr. Joel Beeke, President of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Being of Reformed Theology, according to the seminary's web site, he and that seminary advocate the teaching of Doctrines of Grace, which is merely a euphemism for the Calvinist TULIP Theology. .  .  .

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And that led into a challenging dialogue primarily dealing with God's gift of Free Will to man:   Yeah or Nay?

MARK MASAKAYAN:  Bill, definitely one of my favorite conversations with you!  And as always, I applaud your editorial work and inclusion of the ENTIRE conversation.  (Yet) I still cling to the fact that Calvinism (though it is more Biblical than other theology) DOES NOT SAVE.  ONLY CHRIST SAVES.  Only God is sovereign in His infinite wisdom as opposed to the arrogance of man's theological views.

And it is through God's sovereignty that I can rest my wicked and puny head with a peace that passes all understanding - knowing that I never have sovereignty over God, especially in salvation.  Just like the Israelites in Ezekiel 36-37, their hearts of stone were actively turned by God into hearts of flesh.  God showed His complete sovereignty over their wills and "caused them to walk in His statutes." .  .  .

Bill Gray Note:  Mark, as I understand your comment above, you see Ezekiel 36-37 as God bringing the Israelites back into fellowship with Him (hearts of stone turned into hearts of flesh) - which I believe will happen one day for a Remnant of Israel.  For me a key verse is Ezekiel 37:21 where God is promising to bring Israel out of the nations where they have been scattered - and make them a nation once again - which happened in 1948.  

But Israel, as a nation, is not yet spiritually in step with God and Jesus Christ.  I see verse 21 as the beginning of the fulfillment of Ezekiel 37 - but that restoration will not be complete until Christ establishes His Millennial Kingdom and brings the remnant of Israel out of the Tribulation and into His Millennial Kingdom.  I see the prophecy of an everlasting, eternal, covenant of peace with Israel in verse 26.

The Bible's message is quite clear on salvation.  It's not pray a prayer.  It's not make a commitment.  It's not based upon our human decision.  It's not living a moral life.  It's not baptism.  It's not serving or giving to the church.  It's not founded on the will of man but rather the WILL OF GOD.  It's a repeated phrase and theme scattered throughout the 66 inspired books called the Bible.  Repent and believe.  In His love, Mark

HENRY YAO:   Mark Masakayan, Salvation is based upon the decision to believe in Jesus.

MARK MASAKAYAN:  Henry, so God cannot save a person until they make the decision to allow Christ into their heart?  That is already presupposing we have the innate ability on our own to recognize our need of Christ?

HENRY YAO:  Mark Masakayan, Man was created with free will.  People make choices.  God already finished the work of salvation so all may be saved. But it needs faith in Jesus for that salvation to be effective for the specific individual.

Bill Gray Note:  Just to be clear:   Christ's death on the cross made salvation available to all people (John 19:30).  Christ on the cross provided the opportunity for all people (the world, John 3:16) to believe and receive eternal life.  But it is up to each individual to receive His gift of eternal life.  Like any gift, if we do not receive it, we do not benefit from it. 

Bill Gates could walk up to a homeless man and offer him a check for one billion dollars - which would provide well for that man.  But if he will not receive that check - he is still just a homeless man living on the street among all the squalor.  The same is true of Christ's offer of eternal life to a lost soul.

Simplification:  His death made salvation available to all who will believe.  His resurrection assured that ALL people WILL also resurrect into eternal life ~ Believers to eternal joy in heaven, Non-believers to eternal condemnation in hell.  An individual choice!

MARK MASAKAYAN:  Henry, where in the Bible does it say "man was created with free will"?  Particularly in salvation.  It is ONLY by HIS will that we are saved.

Ephesians 1:4-5, "Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love, but predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

Romans 9:15-16, "For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'"  So then it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who has mercy.

Romans 9:19-23 (nkjv), "You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?'  (20) But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, 'Why have you made me like this?'  (21) Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?  (22) What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, (23) and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory."

Bill Gray Note:  Yes, Romans 9:21 tells us, "God, the divine potter, has the omnipotent power to 'from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor.'"  But my question is:  Would a God of infinite Love, infinite Justice, infinite Mercy, infinite Grace actually choose to create a vessel, i.e., a man, solely for the purpose of condemning him to eternal suffering in hell?

Mark, you had quoted from the new Legacy Standard Bible, but I switched to the New King James Version instead of the LSB you quoted, for the LSB is new and some folks might not be familiar with it.  I compared them and found the only difference I could see in that Romans passage was the word "longsuffering" in the NKJV - and "patience" in the LSB.

HENRY YAO:  You left out Ephesians chapter 2.  You know the verse.

Bill Gray Note:  Henry I believe you are referring to Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."  

The difference being that Calvinist interpret that passage as saying that the gift of god is "grace" - where we who are not Calvinist believe it is telling us that "by the Grace of God through faith alone, we have been saved." 

We read it as saying that the gift is "salvation for all who will believe" and not just the gift of "grace."  Yes, these appear to be the same, but the first is saying that man has the gift of Free Will to believe and receive that salvation.  Reading it as the grace of God which was bestowed upon those chosen to be the Elect before the Creation, takes away man's choice to believe through faith alone - making man's salvation a robotic action.

For me, anyone who reads it as saying "by grace you have been saved through faith" can only interpret that as saying that "the opportunity to believe and have salvation" is by the grace of God. And with that I agree completely.

BILL GRAY:  Hi Mark and Henry, I would like to jump in at this point, for you have touched on a subject near and dear to my heart:  God's gift of Free Will to all mankind.

Mark asks, "Henry, where in the Bible does it say "man was created with free will"?  Particularly in salvation.  It is ONLY by HIS will that we are saved."

I believe that is the heart of this entire dialogue:  Free Will or No Free Will - as defined in the Bible.  So let's explore the Bible for the gift of Free Will:

We will start in Genesis.  God created Adam and Eve in His own image, i.e., He created them to be triune beings:  body, soul, spirit - just as He is Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  They were not created as deity, for only God, the Trinity, is deity.   God gave them great intelligence, obvious in that Adam named all the animals.  And God obviously gave them the gift of Free Will - for when tempted, they did choose to disobey God. 

The result of their disobedience was (1) spiritual death, i.e, their spiritual link with God was broken, (2) the process of physical death was begun, (3) they were evicted from the perfect Garden of Eden and made to suffer hardships which they did not have before the disobedience, and (4) their descendants, starting with Cain and Abel, were born with the curse of an innate sin nature.   That curse has carried down to all mankind.

Man cannot change the physical death, nor the innate sin nature - but man can restore his spiritual connection with God.  Yet, the only way that man can restore his spiritual connection with God is by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ.  And that is done through the gift of Free Wil which God gave to Adam and Eve - and which has been our perpetual gift and blessing since Adam.  You will see nothing in the Bible that tells us Adam lost the gift of Free Will. 

How about Abraham?  Did he have Free Will?  I would say he did for several reasons:

Hebrews 11:8, "By faith Abraham obeyed" - he left his homeland and wandered into unknown countries - only in faith that God had something better for him.

Hebrews 11:7, "By faith Noah.  .  .  prepared an ark" - to survive the flood, despite the fact that there had never been a flood nor rain before.  He trusted God to provide the water for the flood.

And the greatest leap of faith in the Old Testament was in Hebrews 11:17, "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac.  .  ."   Abraham and Sarah had believed God would provide a son, even though Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90 years old when they finally had Isaac.  Then God told Abraham to build an altar and sacrifice his only son, Isaac. 

Genesis 22:1-2 (nkjv), "Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, 'Abraham!'  And he said, 'Here I am.'  Then He said, 'Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.'"

Could Abraham have refused to follow God's instructions?  YES, for in Genesis 22:1 we read, "God tested Abraham."  If Abraham did not have the gift of Free Will to refuse - then this would not have been a test of his obedience. 

During the Exodus, through Moses God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments and the Law.  We all know the Ten Commandments, but do you know the reason for, and the extent of, the Law?  The Ten Commandments is like our Constitution, giving a broad outline of the Founder/founders' intent. 

The Ten Commandments give us the big picture guiding God's people.  The Constitution gives us the big picture governing America.  Then we have thousands of statutes and laws further expanding upon our legal rights and obligations, derived from our Constitution.  In the Law, God gave the Israelites over 600 detailed laws and statutes to further explain His intent in the Ten Commandments.

In Exodus we see the Ten Commandments.  in Deuteronomy we find the over 600 statutes making up the Law.

In Deuteronomy 30:19 God tells Israel, "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;"  God is giving the Israelites a choice:  Follow My Laws and live.  Disobey my Laws and die.  That clearly shows that God gave the Israelites the gift of Free Will.
 
In Ezekiel 18 the prophet Ezekiel is explaining the justice of a righteous God.  In chapter 18:21-22 we read, "But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. . .  (22) None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live."   Ezekiel is surely telling the people of Israel that God gives them a choice:  Follow His laws and statutes and live.  Disobey His laws and statutes and die.  That clearly shows that God gave the Israelites the gift of Free Will.

Ezekiel 18:5, 9, 21 (esv), "If a man is righteous and does what is just and right - walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully - he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord GOD.  But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die."   God gave the Israelites the gift of Free Will.

Now Let's Look In The New Testament:

John 3:14, 12:32, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, .  .  . And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw ALL peoples to Myself."  Not just the pre-Creation Elect, but all peoples.

1 Timothy 2:3-4, "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."   God desires that ALL men be saved, but He does not force them - for we know from Matthew 7:13-14 that many will choose to disobey God.

Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.  Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."   Obviously describing a Free Will choice.

Matthew 13:49, "So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just."

Matthew 25:31-33, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.  (32)  ALL the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.  (33) And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left."

Notice that Christ separates the wicked from the just in Matthew 13:49 - and the sheep (believers) from the goats (non-believers) in Matthew 25:31-33.  There is no mention anywhere in the Bible of separating the Elect from the Reprobate.

Based upon the Scriptures shared above, I can find no Scriptural support which would cause me to believe in the Calvinist Predestination teaching, that before the Creation God Elected some to eternal life and many others, the Reprobates, to eternal condemnation - nor can I accept the Arminian Conditional Salvation, i.e., that a believer indwelled by the Holy Spirit can lose salvation.  Therefore I have to stand with an Exegetical reading FROM the Bible, etc, an Exegetical Biblicist theology.

I pray that this blog has been a fruitful read for you, as it has been extremely fruitful to my knowledge of God's Word in writing it.  I realize that it is a rather long read - but prayerfully some will have the desire and time to read through it  - and just as prayerfully that others will find a few Golden Nuggets which will enhance your understanding of God's Word.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill 

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